The current trend in biological education is to incorporate more laboratory study of the nervous system in high school and college level curriculum. Thus there is a market for permanently displayed macroscopic anatomical organs, especially well preserved disected organs. However, the problem is that wet stored specimens deteriorate rapidly with laboratory use, have an offensive odor, and may induce immunologic hypersensitivity. Further, such displays require a considerable amount of time to set out for laboratory display.
It has therefore become desirable to provide some means by which anatomical organs may be preserved for study purposes over indefinite periods of time without requiring special care and attention that has previously been required for wet laboratory specimens.
Most prior apparatus associated with this field has been utilized for the purpose of preparing sections for viewing through a microscope. Although the methods utilized for these processes are sound, they are intended for use with microscopic specimens rather than for larger display purposes.
For example, it is often desirable to study serialed sections of anatomical organs such as the brains of larger animals. Serialed displays of accurately and equally cut sections of specimens allow an in-depth understanding of the anatomical structure of the organ at various planes through its thickness.
United States Pat. No. 2,996,762, granted to McCormick in 1961, discloses an imbedding structure and method for imbedding of specimens, tissues, cell structures and the like for use in biological studies. This method makes use of paraffin wax for imbedding a specimen. A molding process enables the imbedded specimen to be sliced by a microtome for slide viewing on a microscope. No process is disclosed for preparing the sliced specimens and surrounding wax in a permanent display nor is there any permanent display fixture for displaying serialed sections shown nor taught by this patent.
United States Pat. No. 2,776,596 granted to Eigen in 1957, discloses the preparation and mounting of specimen sections. In this patent, a specimen is suspended within a matrix solution which hardens about the specimen to form a semi-rigid block. This block includes alignment holes for receiving alignment pins of a slicing machine and similar alignment pins of a microscope slide mount. The holes and pins provide for accurate location of the imbedded specimen or slices of the specimen taken therefrom. It is intended that the specimen be sliced by a microtome with individual slices mounted to microscope slides for viewing purposes. No process or display device is shown for preserving the sliced specimens in a permanent display device.
It is a first object to provide a process and device by which serialed sliced macroscopic anatomical specimens can be preserved for long term display.
Another object is to provide such a process and device that will present an accurate representation of the sliced sections in a serialed array so that the viewer may develop a full understanding of the specimen on a plane basis.
A still further object is to provide such a process and device by which specimens may be displayed without requiring a considerable amount of time for laboratory setup.
A still further object is to provide such a display that is hermetically sealed and will thereby not produce an offensive odor as do wet stored specimens.
These and still further objects and advantages will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment which, taken with the accompanying drawings, describe a preferred form of my invention. It is understood however that the following description is given by way of example to disclose a single preferred form of my invention. It is understood that other forms may be envisioned that are not touched by this description. It is therefore intended that only the following claims be taken as restrictions upon the scope and as definitions of my invention.